For years my family has wanted to get my Dad’s scrapbook scanned into digital media for fear something ever happened to it. I finally got it done. My Dad kept it in the depths of his filing cabinet and rarely brought it out, but it’s truly priceless. I’ll just let a few of the pictures and articles do the talking…
Winston-Salem, NC 1949
*note: boring first part, nice pictures down the page
So you might wonder what I did with my time since I resigned at the beginning of June. When there’s upheaval in my life, one of the ways I deal with it is to get hyper-organized. I didn’t plan it this way, but one task led to the next…
It started innocently enough with some music organization. First, I transferred numerous old cassette tapes to .mp3 (mostly live concerts). Then I removed any duplicate songs hanging around in our iTunes library. Next, I decided to find the artwork for every album. We have a good amount of obscure soul music, so tracking down the album covers or some piece of relevant artwork was a monstrously tedious task. After that was all done and our music library was backed-up in numerous locations, I sold off our cds to the local used music store.
At this point, I was ready for more mind numbing chores. Eliminating the majority of the paper in our house is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, so this was my chance. The crucial first step in the process was buying a Fujitsu Scansnap scanner. I had been reading rave reviews about this scanner on uncluttering blogs (yes, they exist, and yes, i read them) for a year or two. I have to say, the product did not disappoint. It does double-sided scanning directly to pdf or jpg and it feeds documents automatically, so you can literally scan hundreds of pages in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t fun, but I eventually reduced two and a half filing cabinets worth of assorted bills and paper down to two or three folders. I also scanned and disposed of the 15 or so huge binders I had from business school. Not surprisingly, my beloved shredder died in the middle of this whole process. I find it remarkable that 15 years of tax returns, assorted bills, owners manuals, all of our notes from undergrad, nursing school, business school, and thousands of photographs can all fit on a moderate size thumb drive. And in case you’re worried about security, it’s all backed-up in several locations and encrypted.
While scanning bills wasn’t fun, scanning our photographs was a treat. And no, I didn’t dispose of those once they were scanned. Here are some gems found along the way…
Adrienne’s kinda pretty, eh?…
So those are just few of the pictures that made me smile. The very best part of the picture scanning project was doing my Dad’s scrapbook. That deserves its own post.
Jolee has already been out for a couple of runs with Adrienne, but this morning was my first time taking her for a spin…
Could there be anything better to look at while running?
If there’s one way that Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science trumps our beloved Museum of Life and Science back in Durham, it’s the water fountain located on the grounds nearby. We tested it out for the first time on Wednesday. I think it was a hit.
Yes, Junie insisted on wearing the same bather she was sporting over a year ago…
Jolee loving the sun…
Taking our time…
Moving closer…
Watching the fun…
A hit indeed…
you may be tempted to touch my full, squishy lips while i'm sleeping. do not do this. i find it disruptive.
One of my favorite things to do these days is to visit Junie's "Little Bear Barbershop" (she came up with the name). She applies imaginary shaving cream to my face, gives me a quick shave with her hand, cuts my hair with her fingers, and then gives me a "lolly" (lollipop) to reward me for my patience. The whole process takes 15 seconds. Unfortunately, her barbershop seems well booked because more times than not she tells me "maybe tomorrow" when I ask her for the works.
On another hair-related note, Adrienne recently purchased one of those magazines with nothing but mugshots of women sporting the latest hairstyles. Well, when told it was a "hair-cut" magazine, Junie was incredibly disappointed when she realized it wasn't full of pictures of people getting their hair cut.
And without question, Junie's favorite thing at the moment is the classic Sesame Street "Banana In Ernie's Ear" skit. It's brilliant and she can’t stop talking about it...
Junie’s first bike deserved its own blog-post, but Junie also helped me decorate one of my bikes this weekend.
a blank canvas…
Junie received her first bicycle today. It’s of special significance because:
1. It’s her first bike
2. I, like so many other kids, spent most of my waking hours on my bike when I was little. With a dollar or two in my pocket, I would leave the house in the morning, ride around the neighborhood, get a slice of pizza for lunch at Little Caesars, and then ride around until exhaustion set in or until dinnertime, whichever came first. I really hope our kids can enjoy that sort of freedom and safety on their bikes. It makes me sad to think they won’t.
3. I bought this bike in the dusty basement of a vintage store almost 15 years ago in Chicago, and back then, I said my kids would someday ride it. My kids was such an abstract concept at the time, so it’s strange, fun, and exciting to see one of my real-life kids riding this bike.
Before the cleanup…
Our good friend, Alyssa, spent last weekend with us. What a sight for sore eyes! Alyssa and I kept Adrienne in the dark about her travel plans, so Adrienne was happily stunned when Alyssa strolled in through the door…
Thanks for the visit, Alyssa. We miss you!!!
